Essay on Health & Social Care

Section B: Caring in a maternity ward
Caring skills and techniques
Caring skills and techniques are essential in a work place. They are having the ability to positively affect and make a difference to a client or patient’s health and daily activates. They also have to support the individual needs of each client in this case a midwife’s client group is pregnant women. It is important for every employee who works in the health sector to have caring skills and techniques such as being able to actively engage with a client/patient and have the ability to cope with the difficult tasks that they are faced with everyday, they have to assist and deal with distressed women. A midwife also has to have verbal and non-verbal communication skills to keep the women up to date with her progress and each stage that she is in labour. Without these caring skills and techniques, the maternity ward shouldn’t be a negative area as this could have a negative effect on the woman, women are better with a tranquil atmosphere to avoid distress as a negative one wouldn’t benefit the woman who would have to stay on the ward for a certain period of time and this could cause further distress for the woman.
Observation
Observation involves collecting certain information about clients such as weighing them. Observation skills help to evaluate the mother's progress before, during and after the pregnancy.
Midwives need to look out for any problems involving the mother or the baby, for example, the midwife needs to see how dilated the pregnant woman is, she needs to do this so that the midwife will know when its nearly time for the pregnant woman to give birth, by doing this it makes the nurses aware of the procedures they need to carry out. Taking doctors notes is vital during the pregnancy so that the midwife can see how much the pregnant woman has come on, also if the pregnant woman is allergic to a certain thing, then the midwife will know and will avoid that product. Another observation skill is carrying out an Amniocentesis test, Amniocentesis is a diagnostic test which can be carried out during pregnancy, and it can access whether the unborn baby (foetus) could develop, or has developed, and abnormality or serious health condition. Amniocentesis can be used to detect a number of conditions, such as: Down's syndrome – a genetic condition that affects a person's physical appearance and mental development. Spina bifida – a series of birth defects that affect the development of the spine and nervous system. Sickle cell anaemia – a genetic disorder that causes a person's red blood cells to develop abnormally. Another observation is observing the pregnant woman’s behaviour, this is important to observe as her behaviour as it can indicate how she is feeling such as anxious. This is important as the midwife can then detect what is wrong with the client and make her feel comfortable, this then can then help the client relax and her behaviour will change, another observational skill is when the midwife feels the woman’s abdomen and to see which way the baby is laying and to see whether the baby is going to be breech, to carry out this test, the midwife takes her thumb, index and middle finger and gentle feels around the side of the abdomen, if its decided that the baby will be breech, the midwife will then decide whether she can turn the baby around to where it is head first (which is the normal way) or whether to have a C-Section. This needs to be decided in the early stages of labour as it could be life threatening if it’s too far into the labour.
Social perception
Social perception means being aware of the client’s feelings, needs and intentions. These issues can be shown by facial expression, posture and tone of voice, as well as what the client is saying.
An example of social perception is how the client is behaving, if she is anxious then this could lead the stress and cause problems in labour, the midwife should recognise if the woman is

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